Monday, 27 July 2015

Get Me Free #16: Rey Pila - Fire Away

Article by KevW

For their new album 'The Future Sugar' (out in September), Mexican band Rey Pila teamed up with Julian Casablancas who co-produced a trio of songs for the record, one of which is opening track and free download single 'Fire Away'. After the first Strokes album, and also throughout his solo work, Casablancas has toyed with retro electronic pop and '80s new-wave, and those influences permeate this track. Even the vocals seem to owe a debt to the The Strokes' frontman. This is not, however, one of his songs, and for all the similar influences and his own input, Rey Pila have their own sound.

On this track in particular, it's the darker electro-pop and new-wave groups that they use as potential fuel, borrowing synths from Soft Cell, bleeps and bloops from certain Giorgio Moroder produced material, and an almost industrial coldness that could be inspired by Kraftwerk. When you merge these with those muscular, slightly doughy vocals then you have a patchwork that will remind you of a lot of different things (the intro could even be early La Roux) yet not anyone that you can directly put your finger on. 'Fire Away' borrows from all over the place, but when put into the melting-pot that is Rey Pila's collective minds, they come away with something individual.